What you're talking about is called consumer surplus, and it's the same argument that Marc Andreessen has been making. Rents are a real issue with real consequ

What you're talking about is called consumer surplus, and it's the same argument that Marc Andreessen has been making. Rents are a real issue with real consequences. It doesn't matter how much cheaper your phone, or your heroin, or your cigarettes cost unless they make your life more productive. You gotta be able to pay rent. If you buy a table saw and a tool belt and learn how to use them, you can make money, and then you can pay rent. If your table saw gets cheaper, you get to benefit from that consumer surplus. If your heroin or cigarettes get cheaper, you get no benefits from that consumer surplus, unless you want to argue that the temporary highs from drug use lead to long term productivity. A cheaper TV does not make you more productive. What we can actually see in these studies is that cheaper phones and more time spent on Facebook do not make people more productive. Sitting around watching cheaper and cheaper videos on your cell phone is about as productive as nodding off on heroin. --- In some circumstances, policymakers might choose to disregard consumer surplus because they do not respect the preferences that drive buyer behavior. For example, drug addicts are willing to pay a high price for heroin. Yet we would not say that addicts get a large benefit from being able to buy heroin at a low price (even though addicts might say they do). From the standpoint of society, willingness to pay in this instance is not a good measure of the buyer's benefit, and consumer surplus is not a good measure of economic well-being, because addicts are not looking after their own best interests. - Principles of Economics, N. Gregory Mankiw, p. 140 --- The numbers don't make any sense to you because you're not thinking like an economist. The reason why we care about actual trade value and money changing hands is because that's what economics is all about. It's about real people paying real rents and real people buying real food. You can't pay rent in Facebook "likes".